POST-SYNODAL APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION AMORIS LÆTITIA OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS (Chapter Three : 58 - 75 )

POST-SYNODAL  APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION

AMORIS LÆTITIA

OF THE  HOLY FATHER

FRANCIS

CHAPTER THREE

LookinG To Jesus:

The  vocaTion of The famiLy

58..                           In and among families, the Gospel message should always resound; the core of that message, the kerygma, is what is “most beautiful, most excellent, most appealing and at the same time most necessary”.50 This message “has to occupy the centre of all evangelizing activity”.51 It is the first and most important proclamation, “which we must hear again and again in different ways, and which we must always announce in one form or another”.52 Indeed, “nothing is more solid, profound, secure, meaningful and wise than that message”. In effect, “all Christian formation consists of entering more deeply into the keryg- ma”.53

59.                      Our teaching on marriage and the family cannot fail to be inspired and transformed by this message of love and tenderness; otherwise, it becomes nothing more than the defence of     a dry and lifeless doctrine.   The mystery of   the

50 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), 35: AAS 105 (2013), 1034.

51    Ibid., 164: AAS 105 (2013), 1088.

52  Ibid.

53    Ibid., 165: AAS 105 (2013), 1089.

Christian family can be fully understood only in the light of the Father’s infinite love revealed in Christ, who gave himself up for our sake and who continues to dwell in our midst. I now wish to turn my gaze to the living Christ, who is at the heart of so many love stories, and to invoke the fire of the Spirit upon all the world’s families.

60.                        This brief chapter, then, will summarize the Church’s teaching on marriage and the fam- ily. Here too I will mention what the Synod Fathers had to say about the light offered by our faith. They began with the gaze of Jesus and they spoke of how he “looked upon the wom- en and men whom he met with love and tender- ness, accompanying their steps in truth, patience and mercy as he proclaimed the demands of    the Kingdom of God”.54 The Lord is also with us today, as we seek to practice and pass on the Gospel of  the family.

Jesus resTores and fuLfiLs God’s pLan

61.                          Contrary to those who rejected marriage as evil, the New Testament teaches that “everything created by God is good and nothing is to be re- jected” (1 Tim 4:4). Marriage  is  “a gift” from the Lord (1 Cor 7:7). At the same time, precisely because of this positive understanding, the New Testament strongly emphasizes the need to safe- guard God’s gift: “Let marriage be held in honour

54    Relatio Synodi 2014, 12.

among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled” (Heb 13:4). This divine gift includes sexuality: “Do not refuse one another” (1 Cor 7:5).

62.                         The Synod Fathers noted that Jesus, “in speaking of God’s original plan for man and woman, reaffirmed the indissoluble union be- tween them, even stating that ‘it was for your hardness of heart that Moses allowed you to di- vorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so’ (Mt 19:8). The indissolubility of marriage

–  ‘what God has joined together, let no man put asunder’ (Mt 19:6) – should not be viewed as a ‘yoke’ imposed on humanity, but as a ‘gift’ grant- ed to those who are joined in marriage… God’s indulgent love always accompanies our human journey; through grace, it heals and transforms hardened hearts, leading them back to the begin- ning through the way of the cross. The Gospels clearly present the example of Jesus who… pro- claimed the meaning of marriage as the fullness of revelation that restores God’s original plan (cf. Mt 19:3)”.55

63.                      “Jesus, who reconciled all things in himself, restored marriage and the family to their original form (cf. Mt 10:1-12). Marriage and the family have been redeemed by Christ (cf. Eph 5:21-32) and restored in the image of the Holy Trinity,  the mystery from which all true love flows.   The

55    Ibid., 14.

spousal covenant, originating in creation and re- vealed in the history of salvation, takes on its full meaning in Christ and his Church. Through his Church, Christ bestows on marriage and the fam- ily the grace necessary to bear witness to the love of God and to live the life of communion. The Gospel of the family spans the history of the world, from the creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gen 1:26-27), to the fulfilment of the mystery of the covenant in Christ at the end of time with the marriage of the Lamb (cf. Rev 19:9)”.56

64.                        “The example of Jesus is a paradigm for the Church… He began his  public  ministry with the miracle at the wedding feast of Cana (cf. Jn 2:1-11). He shared in everyday moments of friendship with the family of Lazarus and his sisters (cf. Lk 10:38) and with the family of Pe- ter (cf. Mk 8:14). He sympathized with grieving parents and restored their children to life (cf. Mk 5:41; Lk 7:14-15). In this way he demonstrated the true meaning of mercy, which entails the res- toration of the covenant (cf. John Paul II, Dives in Misericordia, 4). This is clear from his conver- sations with the Samaritan woman (cf. Jn 1:4-30) and with the woman found in adultery (cf. Jn 8:1- 11), where the consciousness of sin is awakened by an encounter with Jesus’ gratuitous love”.57

56    Ibid., 16.

57    Relatio Finalis 2015, 41.

65.                         The incarnation of the Word in a human family, in Nazareth, by its very newness changed the history of the world. We need to enter into the mystery of Jesus’ birth, into that “yes” given by Mary to the message of the angel, when the Word was conceived in her womb, as well as the “yes” of Joseph, who gave a name to Jesus and watched over Mary. We need to contemplate the joy of the shepherds before the manger, the ad- oration of  the Magi and the flight into Egypt,  in which Jesus shares his people’s experience of exile, persecution and humiliation. We need to contemplate the religious expectation of Zecha- riah and his joy at the birth of John the Baptist, the fulfilment of the promise made known to Simeon and Anna in the Temple and the marvel of the teachers of the Law who listened to the wisdom of the child Jesus. We then need to peer into those thirty long years when Jesus earned his keep by the work of his hands, reciting the tra- ditional prayers and expressions of his people’s faith and coming to know that ancestral faith un- til he made it bear fruit in the mystery of the Kingdom. This is the mystery of Christmas and the secret of Nazareth, exuding the beauty of family life! It was this that so fascinated Francis of Assisi, Theresa of the Child Jesus and Charles de Foucauld, and continues to fill Christian fam- ilies with hope and joy.

66.                           “The covenant of love  and fidelity lived  by the Holy Family of  Nazareth illuminates the

principle which gives shape to every family, and enables it better to face the vicissitudes of life and history. On this basis, every family, despite its weaknesses, can become a light in the darkness of the world. ‘Nazareth teaches us the meaning of family life, its loving communion, its simple and austere beauty, its sacred and inviolable char- acter. May it teach how sweet and irreplaceable  is its training, how fundamental and incompara- ble its role in the social order’ (Paul VI, Address in Nazareth, 5 January 1964)”.58

The famiLy in The documenTs of The church

67.                     The Second Vatican Council, in its Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, was concerned “to promote the dignity of marriage and the fami-  ly (cf. Nos. 47-52)”. The Constitution “defined marriage as a community of life and love (cf. 48), placing love at the centre of the family… ‘True love between husband and wife’ (49) involves mu- tual self-giving, includes and integrates the sexu- al and affective dimensions, in accordance with God’s plan (cf. 48-49)”. The conciliar document also emphasizes “the grounding of the spouses in Christ. Christ the Lord ‘makes himself pres- ent to the Christian spouses in the sacrament of marriage’ (48) and remains with them. In the incarnation, he assumes human love, purifies it and brings it to fulfilment. By his Spirit, he gives

spouses the capacity to live that love, permeating every part of their lives of faith, hope and char- ity. In this way, the spouses are consecrated and by means of  a special grace build up the Body  of Christ and form a domestic church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 11), so that the Church, in order fully to understand her mystery, looks to the Christian family, which manifests her in a real way”.59

68.                    “Blessed Paul VI, in the wake of the Second Vatican Council, further developed the Church’s teaching on marriage and the family. In a par- ticular way, with the Encyclical Humanae Vitae he brought out the intrinsic bond between conju-  gal love and the generation of life: ‘Married love requires of husband and wife the full awareness of their obligations in the matter of responsible parenthood, which today, rightly enough, is much insisted upon, but which at the same time must be rightly understood… The exercise of responsible parenthood requires that husband and wife, keep- ing a right order of priorities, recognize their own duties towards God, themselves, their families and human society’ (No. 10). In the Apostolic Exhor- tation Evangelii Nuntiandi, Paul VI highlighted the relationship between the family and the Church”.60

69.             “Saint John Paul II devoted special atten- tion to the family in his catecheses on human love, in his Letter to Families Gratissimam Sane and

59    Relatio Synodi 2014, 17.

particularly in his Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio. In these documents, the Pope defined the family as ‘the way of the Church’. He also offered a general vision of the vocation of men and women to love, and proposed basic guide- lines for the pastoral care of the family and for the role of the family in society. In particular, by treating conjugal love (cf. No. 13), he described how spouses, in their mutual love, receive the gift of the Spirit of Christ and live their call to holi- ness”.61

70.                  “Pope Benedict XVI, in his Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, returned to the topic of the truth of the love of man and woman, which is fully illu- minated only in the love of the crucified Christ (cf. No. 2). He stressed that ‘marriage based on an exclusive and definitive love becomes an icon of the relationship between God and his people, and vice versa. God’s way of loving becomes the measure of human love’ (11). Moreover, in the Encyclical Caritas in Veritate, he highlighted the importance of love as a principle of life in society (cf. 44), a place where we learn the experience of the common good”.62

The sacramenT of maTrimony

71..                     “Scripture and Tradition give us access to a knowledge of  the Trinity, which is revealed with

61    Relatio Synodi 2014, 18.

the features of a family. The family is the image of God, who is a communion of persons. At Christ’s baptism, the Father’s voice was heard, calling Jesus his beloved Son, and in this love we can recognize the Holy Spirit (cf. Mk 1:10-11). Jesus, who reconciled all things in himself and redeemed us from sin, not only returned mar- riage and the family to their original form, but also raised marriage to the sacramental sign of his love for the Church (cf. Mt 19:1-12; Mk 10:1- 12; Eph 5:21-32). In the human family, gathered by Christ, ‘the image and likeness’ of the Most Holy Trinity (cf. Gen 1:26) has been restored, the mystery from which all true love flows. Through the Church, marriage and the family receive the grace of the Holy Spirit from Christ, in order to bear witness to the Gospel of God’s love”.63

72.                     The sacrament of marriage is not a social convention, an empty ritual or merely the out- ward sign  of  a  commitment.  The  sacrament is a gift given for the sanctification and salva- tion of the spouses, since “their mutual belong- ing is a real representation, through the sacra- mental sign, of the same relationship between Christ and the Church. The married couple are therefore a permanent reminder for the Church of what took place on the cross; they are for  one another and for their children witnesses of the salvation in which they share through the

sacrament”.64 Marriage is a vocation, inasmuch as it is a response to a specific call to experience conjugal love as an imperfect sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Consequently, the decision to marry and to have a family ought to be the fruit of a process of vocational dis- cernment.

73.           “Mutual self-giving in the sacrament of matrimony is grounded in the grace of baptism, which establishes the foundational covenant of every person with Christ in the Church. In ac- cepting each other, and with Christ’s grace, the engaged couple promise each other total self- giving, faithfulness and openness to new life. The couple recognizes these elements as consti- tutive of marriage, gifts offered to them by God, and take seriously their mutual commitment, in God’s name and in the presence of the Church. Faith thus makes it possible for them to assume the goods of marriage as commitments that can be better kept through the help of  the grace     of the sacrament… Consequently, the Church looks to married couples as the heart of the entire family, which, in turn, looks to Jesus”.65 The sacrament is not a “thing” or a “power”,  for in it Christ himself “now encounters Chris- tian spouses... He dwells with them, gives them the  strength  to  take  up  their  crosses  and  so

64 John pauL II, Apostolic Exhortation Familiaris Consortio

(22 November 1981), 13: AAS 74 (1982), 94.

65    Relatio Synodi 2014, 21.

follow him, to rise again after they have fallen,  to forgive one another, to bear one another’s burdens”.66 Christian marriage is a sign of how much Christ loved his Church in the covenant sealed on the cross, yet it also makes that love present in the communion of the spouses. By becoming one flesh, they embody the espousal of our human nature by the Son of God.  That is why “in the joys of their love and family life, he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb”.67 Even though the analogy between the human couple of husband and wife, and that of Christ and his Church, is “imperfect”,68 it inspires us to beg the Lord to bestow on every married couple an outpouring of  his divine love.

74.                     Sexual union, lovingly experienced and sanctified by the sacrament, is in turn a path     of  growth in the life of  grace for the couple.   It is the “nuptial mystery”.69 The meaning and value of their physical union is expressed in the words of consent, in which they accepted and offered themselves each to the other, in order to share their lives completely. Those words give meaning to the sexual relationship and free it

66   Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1642.

67  Ibid.

68 Catechesis (6 May 2015): L’Osservatore Romano, 7 May 2015, p. 8.

69 Leo The GreaT, Epistula Rustico Narbonensi Episcopo, Inquis. IV: PL 54, 1205A; cf. hincmar of rheims, Epist. 22: PL 126, 142.

from ambiguity. More generally, the common life of husband and wife, the entire network of relations that they build with their children and the world around them, will be steeped in and strengthened by the grace of the sacrament. For the sacrament of marriage flows from the incar- nation and the paschal mystery, whereby God showed the fullness of his love for humanity by becoming one with us. Neither of the spouses will be alone in facing whatever challenges may come their way. Both are called to respond to God’s gift with commitment, creativity, perse- verance and daily effort. They can always invoke the assistance of the Holy Spirit who consecrat- ed their union, so that his grace may be felt in every new situation that they encounter.

75.                    In the Church’s Latin tradition, the min- isters of the sacrament of  marriage  are  the man and the woman who marry;70 by manifest- ing their consent  and  expressing  it  physical-  ly, they receive a great gift. Their consent and their bodily union are the divinely appointed means whereby they become “one flesh”. By their baptismal consecration, they were enabled to join in marriage as the Lord’s ministers and thus to respond to God’s  call.  Hence,  when two non-Christian spouses receive baptism, they need not renew their marriage vows; they   need

70 Cf. pius XII, Encyclical Letter Mystici Corporis Christi (29 June 1943): AAS 35 (1943), 202: “Matrimonio enim quo coniuges sibi invicem sunt ministri gratiae …”

simply not reject them, since by the reception   of baptism their union automatically becomes sacramental. Canon Law also recognizes the va- lidity of certain unions celebrated without the presence of an ordained minister.71 The natural order has been so imbued with the redemptive grace of Jesus that “a valid matrimonial contract cannot exist between the baptized without it be- ing by that fact a sacrament”.72 The Church can require that the wedding be celebrated publicly, with the presence of witnesses and other condi- tions that have varied over the course of time, but this does not detract from the fact that the couple who marry are the ministers of the sac- rament. Nor does it affect the centrality of the consent given by the man and the woman, which of itself establishes the sacramental bond. This having been said, there is a need for further re- flection on God’s action in the marriage rite; this is clearly manifested in the Oriental Churches through the importance of the blessing that the couple receive as a sign of  the gift of  the Spirit.